Topic Description

The potential for the use of solar heat for industrial purposes is still largely untapped. The challenge is to reduce the technical complexity and develop cost effective solutions.

Scope:

Proposals shall demonstrate less complex and cost effective technical solutions which significantly increase the share of solar heat in industrial processes and which can be easily integrated into existing industrial plants.

TRL 7 shall be achieved at the end of project activities (please see part G of the General Annexes).

Opening the project's test sites, pilot and demonstration facilities, or research infrastructures for practice oriented education, training or knowledge exchange is encouraged.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between EUR 5 to 8 million would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts

Expected Impact:

The action will result in solutions which demonstrate that solar heat can be a reliable energy source for industrial processes, therefore bringing significant prospects for the market uptake of this renewable energy source and for the decarbonisation of industrial processes.

Topic conditions and documents

Please read carefully all provisions below before the preparation of your application.
IMPORTANT: Please also read the introductory policy context for the activity RENEWABLE ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES of the COMPETITIVE LOW CARBON ENERGY call under the Societal Challenge 3 'Secure, Clean and Efficient Energy' of the Work Programme 2016 - 2017.

List of countries and applicable rules for funding: described in part A of the General Annexes of the General Work Programme.
Note also that a number of non-EU/non-Associated Countries that are not automatically eligible for funding have made specific provisions for making funding available for their participants in Horizon 2020 projects. See the information in the Online Manual.

Where relevant, proposals should also provide information on how the participants will manage the research data generated and/or collected during the project, such as details on what types of data the project will generate, whether and how this data will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved.

Open access to research data
The Open Research Data Pilot has been extended to cover all Horizon 2020 topics for which the submission is opened on 26 July 2016 or later. Projects funded under this topic will therefore by default provide open access to the research data they generate, except if they decide to opt-out under the conditions described in annex L of the Work Programme. Projects can opt-out at any stage, that is both before and after the grant signature.

Note that the evaluation phase proposals will not be evaluated more favourably because they plan to open or share their data, and will not be penalised for opting out.

Open research data sharing applies to the data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications. Additionally, projects can choose to make other data available open access and need to describe their approach in a Data Management Plan.

- Projects need to create a Data Management Plan (DMP), except if they opt-out of making their research data open access. A first version of the DMP must be provided as an early deliverable within six months of the project and should be updated during the project as appropriate. The Commission already provides guidance documents, including a template for DMPs.

- Eligibility of costs: costs related to data management and data sharing are eligible for reimbursement during the project duration.